Summary

Show Notes

• Blind spots are part of growth — we all have areas we can’t see; the issue is how we respond when others lovingly point them out.
• Christ in us — not in the sky. The presence and ministry of Christ flow through the Body of believers.
• Confrontation is love in action — correction from others is not rejection but an opportunity for transformation.
• Spiritual oneness brings clarity — agreement in the Spirit brings freedom, flow, and the anointing.
• Wounds from friends heal — true family love sometimes hurts, but it leads to purity of heart and deeper unity.
• The shepherd’s heart — watching over one another is essential as we move forward together in the Kingdom.

Quotes

• “It’s Christ in us, not Christ in the sky. He’s put Himself and His presence in us.” — Ron
• “We can’t do it by ourselves. We have to do it with each other.” — Ken
• “These wounds I received in the house of my friends.” — Lois
• “Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.” — Debbie
• “We’re not going to be deceived because we’re one.” — Ken
• “They’re not rejecting you — they’re walking with you through it.” — Ron
• “Let them be one as We are one.” — Monnie
• “If one hurts, we all hurt. If one’s conflicted, we’re all conflicted.” — Ken
• “Give us the shepherd’s heart to watch for each other.” — Trisha

Scriptural References

Takeaway

Ron: We still have blind spots in our family, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The bad thing is, if you're confronted by your family on a blind spot that you have — can you open up? Can you be ministered to, or do you run away? Do you throw walls up? That's always the issue. I think there's more than enough love here and objectivity to minister to anybody in the family.

It's Christ in us, guys. It's not Christ in the sky. He's put Himself and His presence in us. Again, it's easy to talk about, but when you're in the dynamics of it, it's not easy. It's really hard, especially when the finger's on you — when the fingers on you and your brothers are saying you’ve got something wrong in your spirit, something wrong in your heart that's coming through and is disruptive to the family.

Can you open up and take that? Can I open up and take that? Because you're not gonna see it. If you saw it, you'd repent of it, you'd turn probably, but you don't see it. God is requiring us to be open to one another and submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ in one another — not in the sky. And it hurts. It's confrontive. That's the point of change.

When the finger's on you, it is not fun, because you don't see it in yourself, and it's confrontive. He's not doing it from the sky. No — He is dealing with you in His family.

Ken: Because in Ephesians chapter four, that's exactly what God talks about through Paul. He talked about the family, talked about the body of Christ, talked about the ministry that’s coming forth.

We submit our hearts to one another, and we don't fly off in a different direction and try to work things out in our-self. That's the problem — we can't do it by ourselves. We have to do it with each other. When we do it with each other, there's a clarity, there's a freedom, and there's a flow.

What is the flow? It's the anointing. It's His presence. It's when He is speaking to our hearts. If there's anything in my spirit that's not right — if there's anything in me that's leading me off in a different direction — how can two walk together unless they agree? And I believe the agreement comes when we're one in the Spirit.

It's not a matter of ideas that come into our heads. It's about our agreement in the Spirit. We're a spiritual people, and we're not always going to agree with everything that everybody does or thinks or says. The one thing we can be one in is our spirits.

Lois: When you were all talking, I thought of the scripture: “These wounds I received in the house of my friends.”

Debbie: I was thinking about Psalm 51: “Lord, create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. Take not your Holy Spirit from me, but enable me to walk before You. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me — anything that's contrary to Your leading, contrary to Your word, contrary to Your voice. Let it be gone from me, Lord.” Search me, O God.

Lois: And after all that, Debbie, in Psalm 51, it says, “Then I will teach transgressors Your ways.” First, let my heart be pure.

Ken: We must come into a level of oneness. If we're out of that oneness, out of the flow, and independently thinking, “They’re all wet and I’m right,” then you’ve missed the level of oneness we’re talking about. The oneness is a oneness of spirit. It's not the independent thought; that’s not the issue — it's the spirit.

And the Word says, “If it were possible, even the very elect would be deceived.” We're not gonna be deceived because we’re one.

Ron: To me, it's the inner workings of the spiritual family that God's working with right now, and He's purifying it again. We're in the fire — haven’t left it — and we're gonna continue in it deeper and deeper.

To me, the way the family works — spiritually, at least in theory —lets put it that way – is when you have something that comes up in the family, you don't necessarily have to confront it. Sometimes they just grow out of it. The Holy Spirit will lead the family in a shepherding way and say, “Okay, this brother or sister, they’re having a problem here, but it's not disruptive necessarily to the family, so let’s just cover them and they’ll grow out of it.”

But on the other hand, there are times when there are things coming up in a brother or sister that are disruptive. That's where there's a confrontation to that brother through the family, saying, “This is a problem, and we need to deal with it now.” That's the point, I think. It's not a rejection , it's not a rejection— it’s a place of change. There’s love and acceptance, but there’s something that has to change, and that’s not a bad thing.

Again, the key in this thing, I think — and it’s something the Lord has to help each one of us with — is that you have to be open when you're confronted by something. And you have to realize that those confronting you love you. They’re drawing from the Lord and have an answer for you. They’re going to walk with you.

They're not excluding you from the family or saying, “Now you gotta go fix this and come back.” That’s not what they’re saying. They’re saying, “There’s something wrong here that needs to be fixed, and we’re going to walk with you through it.”

To me, that’s the family spirit — that’s love. It's not throwing it under the rug and saying, “We can’t deal with this now.” We need to deal with it if we're going to go forward. I know it's not necessarily a pleasant thing, but I just think the Lord’s going to keep bringing us around the mountain until we're willing in our hearts to be confronted and to change.

Again, God's not changing people from the sky on this level. He's changing people in us and through one another — Christ in the earth.

Monnie: Christ Jesus said to the Father, “Let them be one as We are one.” That’s the cry of our hearts: “Father, may my heart and my spirit be as one as You are with the Father.” As a family, we take faith for one another and help one another.

I know what that's like — I run to my parents and I say, “How’s my heart? How’s my spirit? Is there something that needs to be corrected?” We are in a whole new day, in a whole new relationship where we are totally and completely free because we are so aware of His Kingdom. We are so aware of His love and His forgiveness.

We say, “Father, we need You,” but then we stand up with boldness and say, “Lord, You are Lord, You are God,” and we enter in to complete the mission.

Ken: The banner over us is truly love. We love each other, and coming together like this — speaking the truth in love — is very essential for our family.

The things that hurt the most, like Lois was just quoting a minute ago — the wounds in the house of the Lord — they can be difficult, but they're essential, and that’s what God's called us to. In this body of Christ, we're a part of each other spiritually. We are totally connected.

If one hurts, we all hurt. If one’s conflicted, we’re all conflicted. Lord, help us today. Help us to see that our oneness is more important than issues — more important than what we think.

Trisha: I'm thinking about the concept of sheep. I don’t know anything about shepherding on a natural level, but it seems to me when the sheep are lying down and quiet in the pasture, laying down by the still waters, and the shepherd is standing guard — everything’s pretty good.

A lot of times, perhaps the wolves or division doesn’t come. It’s because we’re moving forward. When the sheep are herded forward, it seems to me that would be the time when they’re in motion — they’re going through the path, difficult situations in the natural — but in the Spirit, that’s when things could possibly come to try to pick off the sheep.

And so I ask, Father, that You’d give us Your shepherd’s heart. We’re on the move; we’re following. Give us the shepherd’s heart to watch for each other, to watch over the flocks. We just ask for Your heart for each other, because a lot of times we may not know if we're on the edge. We thank You for that heart in Jesus’ name.

Ken: That is the shepherd’s heart — our care for one another, our concern for each one.